Theological Science by Thomas F. Torrance (review)

BOOK REVIKWS Theological Science. By THOMAs F. ToRRANCE. New York: Oxford University Press, 1969. Pp. 363. $11.75 In a mod-colored drug culture where Roman Catholics argue publicly and desert in droves, it is a strange experience to open the covers of this book and to read that theology is "The science of God." (p. viii) In a day in which atheism is a sweeping tide Professor Torrance finds the presence and being of God bearing upon his experience and thought so powerfully that he " cannot but be convinced of God's overwhelming reality and rationality." (p. ix) Certainly we cannot deny that this may be true for the author; it is just that this is so counter to so much experience today that the reader quickly moves on to see if the book will make God this real for him. Unfortunately (at least for this reader) so much is assumed about God and so little is said directly that no new insight into the divine nature is really forthcoming. Primarily this book is an epistemological study; that is, it is an elaborate discussion of many modes of knowledge, particularly logical and scientific, and an assertion that God can be known in a way comparable to these. One might have thought that the struggle to turn theology into a " science " had been abandoned, but certainly it has not. on the pages of this volume. However, the real question is not whether theology might qualify as a " science " but how many readers will be able to make the assumptions which Torrance needs to make in order to pose his question in this way. There is no doubt but that we are dealing with a major work. The author has amassed a vast amount of recent philosophical theory, and he deals with theology in relation to this in an attempt to show that it can be reconciled with contemporary theoretical sophistication. This is a masterful attempt at the integration of theories, and it is impressive on that score alone. However, its underlying tone is "dogmatic," that is, the author simply and flatly states, time and again, his most conutroversial and basic assumptions. Perhaps any attempt to understand this book should begin with a consideration of the acceptability of its major premises. Torrance says: "How God can be known must be determined from first to last by the way in which He actually is known," (p. 9) and "Knowledge of God is essentially a rational event." (p. 11) But perhaps this statement is the most important: " Theological thinking . . . pivots upon the fact that God has made Himself known and continues to make Himself known, that He objectifies Himself for us, so that our knowledge 128 BOOK REVIEWS 129 is a fulfilled meeting with objective reality." (p. 29) If these various statements can be accepted, the greater part of Torrance's argument can be granted. If God did or does in fact act in this way, the theologian's task has been made easy. Yet, the real question is: Does God in fact present himself in this way? Is that really the way the controversial events surrounding Jesus' life and death are to be interpreted? I suppose that any reader will have to concede that God might act in this way if he wanted to. He could have given us a firm basis for a science about him. It is possible for him to provide us with certainty; but, when we look at the founding events of Christianity and its history, does it really appear as if God " objectified " himself? There is nothing absurd in itself in saying that he aimed to provide us with this kind of certain knowledge about himself, except that that leaves the uncertainty and the puzzles which have surrounded Christianity unexplained. And it is equally possible to assume that God had no such intention to provide man with the basis for a science about himself. Throughout the whole book the intentions of God are assumed as given and not really argued to as opposed to other theories which would not see science as God's aim at all. And it would seem that theology's first task is...